Denzel Washington is set to star in "Inside Man," which Spike Lee is directing for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. Clive Owen is in negotiations to join the movie, which Brian Grazer is producing.

"Inside" takes place during a tense hostage situation in which a tough cop matches wits with a clever bank robber, who sets out to pull off the perfect robbery. Russell Gewirtz and Menno Meyjes wrote the screenplay.

"Inside" takes place during a tense hostage situation in which a tough cop matches wits with a clever bank robber, who sets out to pull off the perfect robbery. Russell Gewirtz and Menno Meyjes wrote the screenplay.

Foster Goes INSIDETaking her first major screen role in three years, Jodie Foster will star with Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's Inside Man.

Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster is set to join fellow double Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Oscar nominee Clive Owen on the Inside. Foster has joined the cast of Spike Lee's Inside Man, which Brian Grazer and his Imagine Entertainment will produce for Universal Pictures. Shooting is slated to begin in early summer.

Russell Gewirtz penned the cat-and-mouse tale about a cop who faces off against a meticulous bank robber trying to pull off the perfect heist. During the heist, however, he finds himself in the middle of a hostage situation. Foster joins the cast as a powerful lawyer brought in to represent some behind-the-scenes interests, which complicates the already delicate situation.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

1. Do the Right Thing (which I coincidentally watched again today)2. Malcolm X3. Clockers (such an underrated movie)4. 25th Hour5. Summer of Sam

He Got Game is another classic that garners my honorable mention. Clockers is so underrated. It really is extremely well made. I remember watching it a couple years ago and going out to buy it right away. I haven't seen it forever though. Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing are nothing short of masterpieces.

Never far from the center of a storm, self-described filmmaker "provocateur" Spike Lee is headed to New Orleans to make a documentary examining how race and politics collided in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Lee says he will use "factual journalism, not creative narrative" in his look at Katrina and New Orleans, which has become a rallying point for black political activists and conspiracy theorists.

Amid criticism that the administration of President George W. Bush was slow to respond, leaving thousands of black and low-income people stranded amid violence and lawlessness, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has suggested the levees in New Orleans were broken as a way of "getting rid of the poor."

Activist Jesse Jackson compared the New Orleans convention center, where evacuees gathered, to "the hull of a slave ship."

"I wouldn't put anything past the U.S. government when it comes to people of color," Lee said in an interview with Reuters. "There is too much history ... going back to when the U.S. army gave smallpox-infested blankets to Native Americans."

Lee watched television coverage of Katrina while he was in Venice, Italy, for a film festival and found himself riveted to the television.

"I thought, 'I have to find an angle and if I find it, I have to do something,"' he said.

Lee compared the New Orleans situation with the 1974 film "Chinatown," which starts as a simple detective story set in 1933 Los Angeles but evolves into an intricate tale of high-level corruption and greed.

"People could not believe, especially the residents of the Ninth Ward, that there wasn't hanky-panky in the flooding," Lee said of the impoverished New Orleans neighborhood that was hit especially hard by the flood.

"And what I thought about automatically was 'Chinatown,' the great film by Roman Polanski. The whole subplot of the whole thing is about water in Southern California and how it was not delivered to the people who needed it."

Lee's documentary will be produced by Time Warner's HBO cable channel and he plans to have it ready for the one-year anniversary of Katrina.

Making 18 films in more than two decades, Lee has been a heat-seeking missile aimed at hot issues like police brutality, racism, black nationalism and interracial sex.

In his new book, "That's My Story and I'm Sticking Too It," as told to British writer Kaleem Aftab, Lee describes the "blood, sweat and tears" needed to turn such topics into movies.

"I don't like the term 'controversial,' he said. "I like 'provocateur."'

In his book, he wrote it is "never the filmmaker's job to have all the answers" but to raise questions and promote dialogue.

Lee attributes his outspoken nature to being raised in the New York borough of Brooklyn, which he has used as the setting for films like "She's Gotta Have It" and "Do the Right Thing."

"I was raised that way, to speak my mind. Everybody in my household did, sometimes all at once," he said.

Lee's struggle to raise funds for films is a key part of his story. His company, 40 Acres and a Mule, has been a seminal influence on black film and helped make stars out of actors like Academy Award winners Denzel Washington and Halle Berry.

Yet never having a blockbuster hit, Lee has had to borrow money from family and friends. Commercial work also has been a big source of income.

It's more than just money, though. His sometimes abrasive, relentless style has antagonized movie executives as he has slammed Hollywood for racial stereotyping and a lack of creativity and chided filmmakers for glamorizing black gangsters.

In making "Malcolm X," Lee fought with Warner Bros. for more money and backing for the three-hour epic. In his book, he describes berating studio boss Terry Semels by saying: "Warner Bros. doesn't view black people as important."

Lee won't censor himself. His wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, complained in the book: "I think he hurts himself often by saying what he thinks."

Also in the book, actor Ed Norton, put it more bluntly: "Spike has a big mouth."

Lee said he wanted to include such criticism in his book. "I tried to make a book that was honest," he said. "That's the way I like to do things."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

Further Details:Universal has officially announced The Spike Lee Joint Collection which includes five Spike Lee films, on three discs. Included will be, Clockers, Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing, Mo` Better Blues, Crooklyn. Each will be presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with English Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks for Clockers and Crooklyn, and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks for the rest. You'll be able to own this one from the 7th March, priced at around $26.98. We'll bring you further details, and artwork, shortly. Stay tuned.

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Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Clockers, Jungle Fever, Mo Better Blues, and Crooklyn all deserve a Criterion edition each, not packaged with a bare bones Do the Right Thing and sold for $30! I mean, damn! At least Columbia/Tri-Star had Spike do commentaries on School Daze and Get On the Bus!

Director Spike Lee, known for his stylish and controversial films, said Mississippi should get rid of the state flag during a speech at the University of Mississippi's Black History Month celebration.

Lee said Mississippians cling too tightly to what he considers symbols of oppression.

"You've gotta do something about that flag," he said. "I know people say its representative of history. Well, so's the swastika."

Lee is working on a documentary entitled "When the Levees Broke," which deals with the African-American experience in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

He did not go into details of the film's focus. But he did say the movie was more difficult to film than "Four Little Girls," in which he interviewed the families of the four children who were killed in a church attack in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.

"When I saw the devastation on TV and in the news...it (didn't) prepare me for what I saw there," Lee said of New Orleans. "You hear these people's stories, and its heartbreaking."

"Levees" will be premiere on HBO on Aug. 29, exactly one year after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

Lee also targeted certain aspects of modern black culture during his speech.

Lee said that rap culture has perpetuated a cult of violence, drug use, disrespect to women and ignorance among a staggering portion of young blacks.

"This 'gangsta' obsession is madness," Lee said. "Thinking like that is genocide."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol